Home › Forums › Open Discussion › New on the King County Parcel Viewer
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June 21, 2010 at 4:08 am #595266
GinaParticipanthttp://www.kingcounty.gov/operations/GIS/PropResearch/ParcelViewer.aspx
I just found that the King County Parcel viewer now includes the first appraisal photo of the house along with the property statement.
For all the neighborhood looky-loos that want to know what the crazy remodeled house looked like in the beginning. Or if you want to look at your own house way back when.
June 21, 2010 at 4:28 am #697139
me on 28th Ave SWParticipantThat is really cool; thanks for sharing!
June 21, 2010 at 4:55 am #697140
WSBKeymasterWe mentioned this on Twitter recently.
I have noticed in looking up various properties for various research purposes that it’s not uniform. Our house, for example, has a 1971 photo, 30 years after it was built, but that was still fascinating. Some photos are much newer. It also is part of a change to the service that includes a lot more information – and if you follow the “my property” report you can even get the city info on whether there are pending permits, instead of having to look that up separately. Handy for how often we have to use it!
June 21, 2010 at 5:21 am #697141
JoBParticipantgreat tool for renters to make sure they are renting from the owner
June 21, 2010 at 5:40 am #697142
DMcGMemberVery cool. At first I was disappointed because the image shown was pretty recent but when I looked at the Property Detail page it had a photo from 1953 when the house was built. The house looks weird with no fence, no railing by the stairs, and with dark paint instead of the light paint it currently is. None of the big trees that you can see in current pictures are visible either.
June 21, 2010 at 1:56 pm #697143
GinaParticipantI enjoyed the timing of the two photos posted. The 1942 one captured my father spreading top soil (he had a pal that worked at the zoo, so was probably manure), and the 2004 update photo was after a 40 year old flowering cherry tree planted by the foundation had to be removed, including major roots. So the planting beds were mostly bare with a fresh load of fertile earth.
The house layout is exactly the same after 69 years.
I’m going to work my way around the block. I remember some of the homes before the attack of the siding salesman. Should be fun to see again.
June 21, 2010 at 2:19 pm #697144
GoGoParticipantThis is so cool, thanks for sharing!!
June 21, 2010 at 4:22 pm #697145
shihtzuParticipantMuch improved and so cool! Thanks for posting. I can see stumps from huge trees that must have been there. Why did you people plant those damned junipers!!! :)
June 22, 2010 at 3:42 am #697146
MaterMemberWe found it to be a little creepy. We’ve only been in our house for just under 2 years but they have a current BACKYARD photo that clearly shows one of our son’s toys. How did this happen? Did they just hold up a camera over the very tall back fence? And why aren’t there photos of my neighbor’s backyards??
June 22, 2010 at 4:50 am #697147
GinaParticipant25 years from now your son will be tickled pink to see that photo!
June 22, 2010 at 4:28 pm #697148
JoBParticipantours has a current picture of the front yard… i can see the ornaments i put in the trees at christmas…i think they must have been out taking pics for assessments recently…
June 22, 2010 at 4:42 pm #697149
anonymeParticipantMy listing shows only a single photo from 30-40 years ago (date not specified). How are all of you viewing such recent photos? I’m not seeing any, maybe they just haven’t reached this neighborhood yet.
I’ve tried searching all the City archives for old photos without any luck. Like many of you, I’d like to see pre-siding images. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make my house look like an aluminum trailer, stripping it of any character. I’ve been working on restoring the house, but really old photos would help. Any ideas?
June 22, 2010 at 5:07 pm #697150
HarmonicParticipantI love this, it’s the first time I’ve seen what my house looked like prior to the “upgraded” vinyl siding. Yikes. Will someone please tell me where you located the date of the photo? I can’t figure it out and I would love to know the date of the first picture. I’m guessing the older picutre is at least 30 years old but have no real way to tell.
Thanks!
June 22, 2010 at 5:22 pm #697151
shihtzuParticipantThe old picture of my house had the date written on it. Well, the year anyway. It appears as 9-51. Some I’ve looked at don’t have dates, especially if they are more recent, like 1960’s and up.
June 22, 2010 at 5:23 pm #697152
CarsonParticipantTo find and order pictures of your house as well as other details email or call. They will tell you what they have and the dates. They had 3 for our house, think it was 1937, 1961 and 1967 as well as all remodel and updating info.
Greg Lange
Puget Sound Regional Archives
Bellevue, WA
(425) 564-3942
June 22, 2010 at 5:26 pm #697153
miwsParticipantI keep meaning to weigh in on this. It’s so cool that they are now including pics, especially older ones in many cases.
I checked out the house I lived in from ’85-00, (and owned for most of that time), and was finally able to see an image of what it looked like decades ago, in this case the late ’50’s.
I had known for years, that the Assessor’s Office had old photos archived, but never got around to contacting them to purchase one.
Harmonic, on some, but not all of the older photos, they have the date noted. However, I’ve also noticed on many, with the date and without, that there is another combination of numbers that looks like it might be a date by the way it’s formatted, (xx-xx-xx) but then taking note of the digits, (and considering the year may be at either the start or end of the sequence), there’s no way it could be an actual date, so the numbers must pertain to something else.
Mike
June 22, 2010 at 5:30 pm #697154
CarsonParticipantMike,
We actually bought all 3, not cheap but worth it to us. Our neighbor also gave us one from the mid 50’s so we have a great visual timeline. The 5×7 is like $17 each!!!
June 22, 2010 at 5:53 pm #697155
HarmonicParticipantThanks! I appreciate it. Our house had a major remodel done sometime in the early 60’s and we’re not sure when. My only clue is when our furnace was replaced, a math homework assignent dated early 1961 fell out of the ductwork. Now I think the ductwork ate my homework is a much better excuse then the dog ate it, no? What fun to research house history.
June 22, 2010 at 6:07 pm #697156
biankatParticipantVery cool.
June 22, 2010 at 8:13 pm #697157
miwsParticipantThanks for the info, Carson.
I don’t know if they’d let me purchase photos for a property where I no longer live.
But, if they do, I’d also want to get any from the house I lived my first nearly eleven years in, here in WS!
What was cool about the house I moved into in ’85, was there was an old couple next door, in their ’80’s, that had moved to their house in around 1938. So, the guy was able to tell me about when my tiny house had had a couple of build outs over the years, (enclosed back porch, which was also made into the bathroom, and a buildout of the bedroom.)
There was a ceiling beam in the bedroom which would have been the original front of the house, and that told me that the original BR was tiny. I had my king waterbed, (with it’s typical deep head board) arranged so that my feet and then some would have been hanging out into the front yard, pre-buildout. ;-) They couldn’t have fit much more than a twin bed in there, and I don’t even know about a dresser, not to mention a closet.
Come to think of it, at the house I lived in as a kid, we had a sweet elderly lady next door, that had moved into her house probably in the ’20’s. She used to drescribe how the neighborhood was “in the woods”, before our house and the others on our, and the nearby blocks were built, and the streets were paved.
Mike
June 22, 2010 at 8:18 pm #697158
CarsonParticipantMike,
Similar story. Lady next door moved in right after WWII. Still lives there. Her daughter remembered playing in our house as a kid. I was actually out doing work one day and the old owners, 1944 to like 1975 drove by. We spoke for a while, they told me about the remodel their dad did in 1962. I told them I found a perfect 1962 Seattle PI Newspaper under the bathroom vanity that he must have placed there, all about the Worlds Fair. I invited them in and they were shocked at the changes. I was shocked that 2 adults and 3 kids lived in a house barely big enough for 2 adults and a dog!
June 22, 2010 at 9:15 pm #697159
waterworldParticipantRe: Mater feeling creepy about picture of his backyard: I just looked at the photos of our house. We ordered the old photos years ago, but now they’ve added pictures that were taken in late 2004 or early 2005 that show our newly remodeled kitchen. To get those shots, the assessor would have had to come into the back yard and walk up to the kitchen windows to see inside. At least the kitchen was clean that day.
June 22, 2010 at 10:14 pm #697160
GinaParticipantMike–you should be able to buy the (old)house photos. My niece bought photos of my house, and the houses of several other family members for Christmas gifts one year. Knowing the address is the main thing.
June 22, 2010 at 10:40 pm #697161
johnnyblegsMemberVery cool. My wife and I are now addicted to this site. We stayed up late and looked up all of our families current residences and emailed them the pictures. All were very happy and surprised to see old photos. Looking at pictures of our neighbors homes gave us a better viewing angle for our house too.
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We’ve been meaning to order pictures to have at home. Where on the site can I do that? Or is there a number I should call?
June 22, 2010 at 11:50 pm #697162
JEMParticipantThe historical photos are available from the Puget Sound Regional Branch of the Washington State Archives. http://www.sos.wa.gov/archives/archives_puget.aspx
You actually need the tax parcel number, not just the address. You can email or call them, they call you back and tell you which years of photos they have.
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